So as a newer collector of maybe the past 6 months or so, I decided to buy Morgan silver dollars. I bought an 1885 morgan which I admit I payed maybe 7 dollars more than I should have. I personally like it and appreciate it despite its flaws. My second morgan dollar is the one I'll show you and I bought it on ebay from an antique shop for only 16 dollars and some change. It think it's a beautiful coin, though it's a bit darker, from toning than the other one. I think it's a nice find, and I'd love to know others thoughts on it
Welcome to CT!!! It looks like an honest circulated Morgan Dollar would make a good hole filler for a book. I too started with Morgan Dollars and they remain one of my favorite US coins. The series is very popular to collect and there are still enough out there that a nice Unc. Date set can be put together on a modest budget. If you are interested in collecting these I would recommend you get this book It has a lot of great in depth information on the entire series and is very inexpensive in paperback. Edit: I have to add that this is a series that you can easily get ripped off on if you do not do the proper research. Get good at grading these off of photos if you are buying raw ones. https://www.pcgs.com/photograde#/Morgan/Grades
Welcome to the forum. I agree with Mont on the book recommendation. It is a great starting point to collecting Morgan Dollars. I have the 2nd edition myself..
The reverse is much nicer than the obverse - she's had a hard life. Something you will learn is that the obverse is way more important... a bad reverse can bring DOWN the overall grade, but rarely INCREASE it. As for collecting in general, here's the thing... If you get serious about collecting Morgan Dollars, you are going to want to move up a bit in grade. And if you are going to build the set, there are some that are quite pricey even in low grades. So you need to think - best $40 coin I can find or all in XF or whatever YOU want for YOUR collection. But now that you've been mildly bitten by the bug is the best time to step back, learn about the coin and series and think out how you are going to collect them. You also need to think about sources - buying random from antique shops will not get your eye trained - for that you need to see LOTS of coins. Then dive in. Meanwhile, during the month or two it takes you to figure it out, put the coin money aside - be it $20/week or $200/month or whatever. You'll be able to make a bigger (more important) purchase when you start collecting again.
I too started with Morgan’s and still love them. Be sure you can grade well before you buy much. The bug is there to buy but it is easy to pay more than you should and get junk coins. I’m a good case in point, as I just started buying first and after about 20 coins got a funny feeling. I was buying from the same dealer coins sold as AU/BU, but in reality they were all XF and harshly cleaned. I would have saved myself some money if I had learned to spot these earlier.
